Premoase (B/A), Aug 6, GNA - Chiefs and people of Bassa have appealed to the government to revisit exploration of oil at Premoase that was abandoned 30 years ago.

Mr Jonas Abronye, a spokesperson for the chiefs of Bassa, said explorers from Shell Nigeria discovered oil at Premoase in the Sene District in 1977 but abandoned the project.

Mr Abronye said this at a press conference organised by the chiefs and people of Bassa Traditional Council in conjunction with the Sene District Assembly attended by all the chiefs in the traditional area.

Mr Abronye, who is a lecturer at the Sunyani Polytechnic, appealed to President John Agyekum Kufuor and the Ministry of Energy to send experts to the site to check the viability of the project. He said there were also large deposits of lime in the area that could be used for the production of cement and paint. Miss Cynthia Titiriku Danso, District Chief Executive for Sene, said the district was the largest in the region but the most deprived because its natural resources had not been tapped, citing for instance, large hectares of arable land for agriculture and tourist attractions on islands in the Volta Lake and gold deposit at Pakebe and its surrounding communities.

She said she would forward the issue to the President and assured the chiefs that every thing possible would be done to get to the button of the exploration project.

Nana Adarkwa Yiadom, Kyidomhene of the Bassa Traditional Area, said during the Third Republic when he was the Member of Parliament for the area, he made several attempts to revisit the issue with the Geological Survey Department and the information he had was that the reserve was not in commercial quantity.